Observational Study of Qigong as a Complementary Self-Care Practice at a Tertiary-Care Pain Management Unit

Table 6

Health Locus of Control (HLC) scores for those undertaking qigong practice as a voluntary self-care practice at a Pain Management Unit.

	Controls N = 46	Qigong groups
		All N = 43 vs. controls	Ongoing N = 28^2; vs. controls	New N = 15; vs. controls	N = 15 good outcomes^2; vs. controls	N = 13 variable outcomes; vs. controls
Health Locus of Control (HLC)^1	36.07 ± 6.98	31.79 ± 6.59	30.89 ± 6.85	33.47 ± 5.94; NS	30.73 ± 7.83	31.08 ± 5.82

All values in the table are mean ± standard deviation. values compared to controls are by the unpaired t-test. NS indicates not significantly different, . ¹The HLC scale consists of 11 items, each scored on a 6-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 2 = moderately disagree, 3 = somewhat disagree, 4 = somewhat agree, 5 = moderately agree, 6 = strongly agree). (1) If I take care of myself, I can avoid illness. (2) Whenever I get sick it is because of something I’ve done or not done. (3) Good health is largely a matter of good fortune. (4) No matter what I do, if I am going to get sick I will get sick. (5) Most people do not realize the extent to which their illnesses are controlled by accidental happenings. (6) I can only do what my doctor tells me to do. (7) There are so many strange diseases around that you can never know how or when you might pick them up. (8) When I feel ill, I know it is because I have not been getting the proper exercise or eating right. (9) People who never get sick are just plain lucky. (10) People’s ill health results from their own carelessness. (11) I am fairly responsible for my health. Note. Items 1,2,8,10,11 are reverse-scored. An internal locus of control is indicated by lower composite scores, and an external locus by higher composite scores. (Scale from Wallston et al. )¹⁸. ²ONGOING and GOOD OUTCOME groups represent quantitative data for N = 6 reported in a case report¹⁵ and N = 9 good outcomes in Table 3. The one subject who was new to qigong at the start of RIM1 included in Table 3 remains in the NEW group for the attitudinal analysis.